Walter Lee recalls magnet schools' creation

Dec. 17, 2012

Written by

Walter Lee, the former Caddo Parish schools superintendent who recently retired from the same position with the DeSoto Parish School District, has been credited with creating the magnet school system in Caddo Parish.

The Times recently posed questions to Lee about the decision-making that influenced the process and his thoughts on the effectiveness of magnet schools today.

Q: When did discussions about Caddo Parish magnet schools start and why?

A: I had been superintendent about four or five years (he became superintendent in 1979) when I set up 15 magnet schools in Caddo. They were the first schools of choice in Caddo. We were losing enrollment, and parents were choosing private schools and parochial schools, and there were lots of new schools, church schools. I just thought we needed to give parents a public school choice.

So we also did it in relation to the desegregation order. Most all of the magnet schools were set up in minority neighborhoods with new staffs and with some enrollment criteria. And they were all diversified as far as racial goes. And they all worked. So that was the beginning; it was to improve racial equality and to give more attention to academics than what some of the students were receiving in their home schools.

Q: How big of a role did desegregation play in the decision?

A: A very big role. It was a part of the desegregation order — that we have those magnet schools. Integration was not working well. Both black and white parents did not like busing, required busing. So the court agreed that we would try these magnet schools. I would say it was somewhat experimental. We just didn’t want to do it for required integration. We wanted it to improve educational opportunities.

Our objective was not to decrease or shut out private education. We were just trying to give the taxpayers choice. If they wanted to choose private or parochial, that was their choice. And some did. But many of them chose the magnet schools.

And we did see a decrease in private/parochial enrollment, particularly at the church schools, and an increase in public education. Enrollment went up from 40,000, somewhere in that range, to about the time I left it was about 55,000.

Q: Was there a model to go by to establish the magnet system?

A: Not a model, per se. About the only one I used as a model was the Baton Rouge magnet high school. They had a good magnet school there, and I went and looked at it, sent staff to look at it. Then we used the principal there as our consultant to set up Caddo Magnet High. There were not many magnet schools in the state at the time.

Q: What were the pros and cons of implementation?

A: There was a lot of concern where the schools were physically located. There was concern by the black community they were losing neighborhood schools. And there was concern from the white community about expecting their children to leave their community and go into a black neighborhood. But this also was done when we just had a relatively new court order requiring busing for integration and parents were concerned about busing children out of their neighborhoods, out of their schools and in some cases go across town to a strange neighborhood.

Generally speaking, the black community accepted that requirement better than the white community. And at the same time we were integrating children, we were integrating teachers. So it was all a movement to improve education and improve racial balance.

Q: How long was the process?

A: It took about three years for it to be accepted in a way that it was not an issue. Q: How were the locations decided?

A: We had a committee of school people as well as citizens and community groups. Primarily, though, it was the education family that strategically located the magnet schools so that they would be fairly close to where the children live. So it was an effort to not bus any farther than was necessary. And we also had to get the parents to buy into it.

We set magnet high school up at what was previously a black school in the Stoner Hill neighborhood, the school was Valencia. The white parents were concerned about sending their children into that black neighborhood. Same thing, we had a middle school we set up at Eden Gardens in an all black community. A third one that was fairly large was Eden Gardens Elementary.

But they were all located in well-established, black neighborhoods, and back then, crime rate was not that high, just apprehension on both parts. Just like it was with the black families having their children bused in to white neighborhoods. With the white families, they had to choose to go, it was choice … but with support, all of it worked. And the parents, once they enrolled their children and they saw the quality of instruction and success that was taking place, the schools sold themselves. All of those schools with strong principals did very well.

Q: Are magnet schools still a good design for education?

A: Depending on the circumstances. A magnet school is somewhat kinship to a charter school in that they are schools of choice. I don’t know if magnet schools are the right answers for public schools. Again, it would depend on the circumstances of the schools system, the community, what kind of programs are being offered without magnet schools. It’s just another form of choice.